Hi,

I have a 1990 Honda CRX SI with 200,000 miles on it, but the actual engine millage is unknown. When I first got it it was burning around 1-2 liters of oil per tank. Now 3000km later the car burns roughly 10L (2.5 gallons) of oil every tank of fuel (probably a little more, by 1/3rd tank the dipstick is bone dry). I'm using 5w20 because I bought a ton of it for cheap. The car leaks an embarrassing amount of oil when parked and definitely smokes a ton (looks like the oil is leaking from the passenger side of the engine). I've slipped on the huge puddle in the garage a few times now. I've tried various additives and sea-foam but they've all made it much worse.

I'm trying to prolong an engine swap as long as possible (hopefully a couple more months), is there ANY possible cause other than bad rings? PCV valve?

 

piston rings, head gasket, valve seals. engine is toast. thats a lot of oil and i cant believe its still running. good luck.


ps seafoam is horrible stuff to use and probably made it worse.

 

Could be a pcv valve causing too much pressure. I would start by finding the leak. That will probably get rid of half of the oil dissapearing.

 

Shoot me a post message man, some pictures would help!

Are you leaking oil from the upper(head) or lower (block) passenger side. Have you checked if its leaking at your distributor? Burning oil sounds like rings.

Get some kitty litter to toss on the wet oil so it will absorb up then sweep it into the trash then lay some clean cardboard down under the engine let it leak pull the cardboard this will give you an idea of where its leaking i'm going to assume you checked the obvious stripped drain plug or leaking oilpan gasket.

Good luck ask questions and take pics they always help!

 

for it to be burning that much oil it would definitely be a combination of both piston rings and valve seals that have gone bad, there isn't any way to avoid the oil burning but there's a way to help it a little. try a fresh new oil change with 10w30 oil and add an engine restorer or lucas oil treatment, they help alot. the 5w20 oil is way to thin thus burning it extremely fast. if the oil leak is coming from the passenger side and leaks as much as you mentioned, its almost always the rear main seal in those motors which could be a pretty hard task. but again using the thicker oil with any of those two treatments will help with both the oil burning and leakage.

 

nothing is going to help slow down 10L every 3000km. thats over twice as much as the engine holds, its like you're doing an oil change every 1500km. there is no saving and engine burning 10L of oil.

 

Find out where its leaking!

 

holy cow! For every tank of gas you're burning 2.5 gallons of oil? That's insane? Or did I misunderstand you...
And is it all going out the tail pipe, or is any leaking on the ground.
That's a LOT of oil.

 

That's a Honda for ya!

 

whats the cause if its leaking by the distributor?
my d15b2 just hit over 200,000 and it burns oil like crazy. on the ground theres a slight drip but thats about it

 

the o ring is just bad. O ring is actually quite easy to replace..

 

Yeah, O-ring is a terrible leak. Replaced it on my 230k D16A6 that I've only put a head gasket on, and I thought it was burning tons of oil because it smoked and I had to put a quart in a week (and I don't drive much).

Replaced the o-ring, and now I NEVER lose oil. Still full a month later.

 

Wow thanks for all the replies, yeah it looks like the leak is coming from the front passenger side of the engine. I do use Lucas oil treatment, and yeah she does smoke a ton lol.. It looks like fog behind me on the highway.

The car isn't a DD or anything, I'm just looking to drive it 200 miles on the highway home to avoid a tow but it looks like I'm getting a car trailer now so it's not going to be an issue. I was hoping it might be some easy seal that I could replace and drive it for most of the summer before doing a swap, but it looks like a tear down is a better option. I'll take some pictures this weekend.

 

Okay I started up the engine today and drove it around a little bit. I pulled off the crankcase breather hose and smoke started pouring out of the hose like crazy (looks like a smoke machine).

Under the oil cap doesn't have any milky stuff and the coolant looks perfect.

Is there any temporary fix or something that I can do?

 

If it's blowing stuff out of the breather hose, that sounds like bad rings to me...but that is probably only part of the usage. Mine is going through oil like crazy, but it only smokes bad sometimes, and I go through a quart every 100-150 miles. Did you find where it is leaking? If it is on the passenger side, chances are good that it might just be the o-ring on the distributor like is mentioned above...pretty easy and cheap fix. Is the transmission covered in oil, or is it only coming out the bottom?

 

Also, mine doesn't leak at all...if you can get rid of the leak, you can probably cut the oil usage in half or better.

 

ur rear main seal is leaking like crazy......ita a easy fix, pull the tranny and replace it, 10.00 part,, as for the smoke from the crank case, ur rings are gone, the engine can still last you a while as long as u fix that rear main seal leak.

 

well after adding some parts to my vehicle (vtec head and manual), i needed a front and rear main seal which got replaced. no oil is leaking now but i probably burned thru 2 quarts already with three days driving... the d15b2 has over 217,000 miles on her

 

for f*&( sakes, your rings are gone, no way of stopping the problem with out rebuilding the $50 engine. replace engine.

 

help the earth, put in a new engine